“Do it!” I growled, tipping my chin in offering.

“Don’t tempt me, boy!” He threatened, and I only smiled in response. I’d learned that if we got a good hit out of the way, it would buy me a few weeks of quiet. I needed a few weeks of quiet.

Desperately needed it.

I pushed at his chest and shouted, “Do it! Hit me! I know that’s what you want!” His lips tightened as he decided what to do, so I smiled again, really goading him, and that was the moment he snapped. He pulled back his fist and in seconds it collided with my face.

He immediately dropped his hand and, walking backward, assured, “I won’t stop until you are walking down that f**king aisle. It is imperative that you marry Shelly Blair! Imperative!” And with that he jumped back in his Bentley and drove off.

8

The blood from my lip dripped down my chin, but I let it. My cheek throbbed and my jaw ached, but it reminded me why I couldn’t marry Shelly, couldn’t live this life forever, eventually turning to liquor to cope like my momma and being trapped in the suffocating world of society dinners and duties.

I headed straight for the nearest tree and hit the bark until my hands grew numb, my muscles ached, and blood spilled from my knuckles. The heaviness of my breaths exhausted my body and I slumped to the floor, staring unseeingly at the grass before me.

Fuck! I couldn’t keep living in this constant hell, this darkness.

How the hell had everything all gone to shit so quickly? I could feel the weight of it all pressing down on me—my folks, football, school—and I could barely breathe or think. I wanted to curl into a ball right here on the ground, not really caring who would find the great Bullet Prince reduced to a bleeding, hurting mess.

I heard the sound of a dry twig snapping next to me, and when I lifted my head, Molly stood before me, hands shaking, tears in her eyes, whispering, “Romeo, God…”

She looked like a friggin’ angel.

Dropping to her knees beside me, her golden-brown eyes softened in sympathy. She set to cleaning up my cuts, but none of it really registered; my mind was lost in a thick fog.

“Does this hurt?” she stopped to ask, but I could only manage to shake my head.

She edged closer still, her small body snug between my legs, and she pressed a pink scrap of material to my lip. Still, I could only stare.

“Swill your mouth out, Rome. That blood can’t taste too good.” She handed me the bottle, and I did as she said, spitting the water onto the ground, the dried soil laced with red.

Then she surprised me, gently taking my hand and sitting beside me. As I stared at her small fingers wrapped around mine, I realized this girl was turning into everything I needed but never dreamed of being able to get. On the surface, she was my exact opposite, but deep down, she was getting me like no one ever had before.

Feeling her hands squeeze mine in support, I snapped out of my daze and croaked, “Hey, Mol.”

“Hey, you.”

“How much did you see?” I asked, dreading the answer.

Moving in closer, her arm brushing mine, and tucking her head into my neck, she replied, “Enough.”

Someone had finally witnessed my daddy in action, and, feeling like I was eight again, I dropped my head against the tree, feeling humiliated that she’d seen me like that, still stupidly a victim to my father.

“Who was the man in the Bentley?”

“My daddy,” I admitted after a few seconds of silence.

“Your father?” That shocked her, and those eyes tensed with anger, her body curving toward me protectively. That was definitely a first. I couldn’t speak at the gesture, a moment of happiness seizing my voice. I’d never had anyone comfort me before, never had anyone care enough to comfort me before. Being around Molly made me happy… Fuck… She actually made me happy.

I kept her hand tight in mine, not wanting to let this feeling go.

“You okay?” she asked again.

“No,” I confided, the tears threatening to fall.

“You want to talk about it?” I absolutely did not, so shook my head.

“Does he hit you a lot?”

I decided to just go with it. She’d seen more than anyone else ever had; no use in pretending otherwise. “Don’t get a chance much anymore. He was pissed with something I’d done. He called me to meet him and… Well, you saw the rest.”

Shifting in front of me, she asked, “What was so bad that he’d strike you like that?”

I wanted to reply with the truth—because I was a blight on their perfect lives, a reminder of something they’d rather forget—but I was never going go there, never ever going to reveal that, so I simply said, “Money, disappointment, not being the dutiful son. The usual. He’s never gone that far in public before, though. I’ve never seen him so pissed.”

“But you’re his son! How dare he treat you like that? What the hell have you done to deserve to be punched?”

I wasn’t going to go there.

Sitting back in frustration, but accepting that she wasn’t getting an answer, Molly changed the subject, asking about the Arkansas game. I confessed that I hadn’t been playing well.

“I’ve never had such a bad start to a season in my entire life. My senior year, the one in which I’ll enter the draft, and it’s all going to hell in a hand basket.”

“Why is it going so bad?” Her eyebrows were pulled down, her thick frames slipping a fraction down her nose.